Vehicle automation has been suggested as a means to increase vehicle safety almost as long as cars have been in existence—experiments on autonomy in cars have been conducted since at least the 1920s. Only recently, though, has computer technology advanced enough to make true vehicle automation possible.
Still, autonomous vehicles as implemented or designed today are essentially independent entities—based on input from vehicle passengers, the vehicles travel a set route and typically avoid communication with other autonomous vehicles. At a local level—that is, how vehicles interact with their immediate surroundings—this may be acceptable; however, at a more regional level (e.g., how vehicles decide a route to travel upon), this leaves much to be desired. Autonomous vehicles that can communicate with each other and other sources, as well as be controlled at a fleet level, could better respond to a greater variety of routing goals and produce substantially more coordinated and/or effective routes than any existing system. Thus, there is a need in the vehicle automation field to create systems and methods for autonomous vehicle fleet routing. This invention provides such new and useful systems and methods.